Reviews with content warning for Blood - Pageboy

Reviews tagging 'Blood'

Pageboy by Elliot Page

80 reviews

emmajh91's review against another edition

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challenging emotional inspiring sad medium-paced

4.0

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snootle's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

3.0

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cghegan's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective sad slow-paced

3.25

In this incredibly thoughtful and well-written memoir, Elliot Page deliberately meditates and threads together a narrative of pain and the most intense self-discovery. It was a good memoir, a beautifully crafted book, but extremely difficult to read. Page has rendered his agony and self-loathing so well that it’s difficult to sit with and parse with him as he cycles through nonchronological threads, looping over and over through small moments in time to piece together meaning. It is well crafted, a quilt in twenty nine shades of blues, but it is wave after wave of agony and sadness, and moments that linger on joy or relief or self discovery have less focus and the same breath of life that Page can write into his moments of darkness and loss. All this to say: I’m beyond grateful this narrative exists. It is going to save someone’s life. But I advise exercising care when reading.

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larzhagen's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

3.5

Let me preface my review by saying that I am so incredibly happy for Elliot Page for finding joy in his authentic self.

As a long-time fan of Page, I was eager to read PageBoy (I pre-ordered a signed copy). We need more transmasculine stories! That's why it hurts to share that I didn't enjoy PageBoy very much.

Reason 1: Rather than following a linear narrative, Page recounts moments in his life seemingly at random. So, then, his timeline is incredibly challenging to piece together. It's difficult to keep track of his relationships, living situations, etc.

Reason 2: PageBoy is heavily solemn with no breaks (aside from maybe ch.Buckets). It reads like a catalog of Page's hardships, sometimes diving into graphic depictions of assault/violent situations. Page loves to write about shit and blood.

Reason 3: PageBoy centered predominantly around Page's romantic relationships and sexual experiences. I may be off base, but it seems Page is still attempting to unhealthily gauge/validate his masculinity by retelling these situations.

Now the positive: I'd say PageBoy succeeds as an art piece. Elliot includes many excerpts from speeches, books, songs, movies throughout his nonlinear structure. PageBoy is a wonderful collage-esque expression of self-healing and reflection.

Ultimately, PageBoy is a testament of trans courage. While it didn't align with my expectations, I still feel incredibly fortunate to have a signed copy, and I did resonate with it quite a bit. In the end though, I will be reserved when recommending it to others.

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